Poster

Client Context

Christian Dior, part of the global conglomerate, LVMH, is a well-known luxury brand that has a vast consumer following and presence in 75 countries. Their Perfume and Cosmetics division is especially popular, selling one lipstick per second globally. The North American branch of Dior partners with retailers such as Macy’s and Dillard’s, servicing them from a singular distribution center in Cranbury, New Jersey. Their Class A SKUs, which make up 43% of their business, are the main priority of this project.

Project Objective

Currently, Dior does not have a means of consistent inventory tracking which has resulted in a lack of visibility into their distribution. While they receive weekly inventory levels from retailers, this information has previously been under-utilized. Additionally, they are experiencing both stockouts and returns in high volume which is negatively impacting their business and resulting in lost sales. This can be attributed to inconsistent priorities between Dior and its retailers which causes a discrepancy in order quantities. Lastly, Dior is experiencing their worst supply shortage in history which has resulted in extremely high levels of unfulfilled orders and lost sales. 

Design Strategy

To mitigate these various issues, we created an Inventory Tracking Tool, Order Recommendation Report, and Shortage Allocation Optimization Model inventory allocation. To ensure these methodologies could be seamlessly integrated into their current system, they were built in excel and ipython notebooks.

Deliverables

The Inventory Tracking Tool implements newly developed KPIs into Dior’s existing tool with a supplementary Python code to provide increased analysis into inventory levels and measure Dior’s performance. With the Order Recommendation Tool, Dior planners can input their desired SKU and store information and the tool will pull in the inputs, along with historical data and current inventory, to give an output of order quantities to recommend to retailers. This aims to assist in minimizing return risk and maximizing sell out. Finally, the Shortage Allocation Optimization Model determines how inventory should be allocated in the event of a shortage in a method that is more effective in increasing service level for the retailers compared to Dior’s current First-Come First-Serve allocation method.

Project Information

Spring 2020
Christian Dior

Student Team

Anisha Anand
Julia Bender
Christina Darland
Madelyn Hightower
Narae Lee
Hannah Mills

Faculty Advisor

Faculty Evaluator